


the futility of (trying to live while) drowning

by ALC_Punk



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Gen, Not Really A Happy Ending, POV Second Person, References Andromache/Quynh, Theoretically Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25298896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: Quynh goes into the sea, wrapped in an iron maiden and hope.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	the futility of (trying to live while) drowning

**Author's Note:**

> I wouldn't classify this as anything but angst, pain, and rage. I wrote most of it in one sitting, then came back after re-watching, and expanding a bit more. There's probably a little too much hyperbole, but I've always liked hyperbole.

You did not stop screaming, did not stop fighting against the cage of the iron maiden, until they pushed you over the side of the ship. And even then, you only paused to get your bearings, to take one last, deep and desperate breath full of brine and fish, aging wood and your own fear. 

Then the water closed over your head, and you watched as the sunlight receded, as the salt stung your eyes. Forever, you fell, a stream of bubbles slowly forced from your lungs. You hit the bottom as your body began to let go, as your lungs screamed for mercy. 

A breath, sucked in too fast, the choking taste of the salt-water, drowning you, drowning you so swiftly that you wanted to scream again, but you had no air to do so. And then you were lost the first time. 

Waking, breathing in salt and sea, then dying again, you search the depths of the sea for the seconds you have conscious, trying to find something, anything to reassure yourself that _this is not happening_. 

But nothing looms out of the blackness, no gamine grin from Andromache, no shrug and head-tilt from Yusuf or Nicolo.

Counting the seconds, as you used to count the stars, lend you nothing but more lost time. 

Panic sets in, and you are fighting again, kicking, punching, abrading your flesh against the inside of your cage until you can taste your own blood even as you drown in it. 

You try to count the times, some small part of you wanting to _know_ when it is that you will die forever. 

You stop remembering what the stars looked like, after the first hundred deaths. There is nothing but dark and the occasional light far far above. Nothing like the glittering shapes of thousands of constellations, or the light of the moon as it bathed Andromache's skin. 

A part of you remembers Andromache, remembers the taste of her mouth, the press of skin against yours. 

But it's a distant memory, the press of the water, the weight of the iron bearing down upon you as your breath goes, as your life dies. 

Over and over again, you beat at the container, you push at the ocean, you _fight_ , as you have always fought. 

Surely, they will come for you. Surely, there will be a night to see again, stars to count, Andromache to tumble into the grass after a hard days' labor. 

The first hundred, the first thousand, times you die, you remember every second, every tiny moment of the drag of water in your lungs, the taste of salt and brine and blood, the struggle to breathe. Water fills your lungs, choking you, as you fight against it. Even though you are drowning, you still want the crisp taste of air in your lungs, but it's a fleeting memory that never quite surfaces or quenches the thirst. 

You remember laying upon the ground, wishing and waiting for the sun to bleach your bones. You didn't know how long that would take, but the pain was endless, the sun burning you by day, the ground freezing by night. The repetition was almost endearing, as you waited for the end. 

But then Andromache was there, pulling you to your feet, cursing at you, pushing you to _live_. There was no reason to give in, to die then. You could not know when the end was, spending a hundred years, burning and freezing upon the ground was no way to live. 

You ran together, you fought together, you _loved_ together. Andromache was the light in your life, the beacon forever pulling you with her, forging on-wards until the world was small to the both of you. You met others of your kind, you forged friendships, battle-plans, and triumphs together. 

Those years are becoming lost to you, as the sea rips through your lungs and the salt burns your eyes in the kind of pain that you had forgotten. 

As surely as the sea presses you into itself, you begin to lose hope. You begin to forget the smiles of your fellow immortals, to know the feeling of fighting alongside them. There is no sunlight buried under the sea. 

There are no immortals come to save you from this watery grave, you are truly alone. 

Perhaps, Andromache is also trapped in such a way, forever burning at the stake, or forever lost in the depths of the mud and earth. But you believe that you would know. Your heart, you mind, your body, would _know_ were she suffering as you are. 

Just as you believe she should feel your suffering. That she doesn't, that she hasn't, that she is as lost to you as the sky, as the stars are, fills you with something like hatred. Something that is no longer _love_. It burns through you. 

_Just you and me, until the end_ , she had said. A forever promise to see the world until you both met your time. Together. And yet, you are here, at your end, and she is not.

You are alone, in excruciating torment, and she is not.

Rage fills you, then, a deep, abiding rage that chases the terror and panic from your blood. And you begin to fight against your fate even harder than before. 

You lose count of the times that you die, you forget how many fingers you break against the metal holding you in its cage. Your feet, your ankles, your wrists, your elbows. Over and over again, they shatter and rip against that which holds you in its grasp. 

Then you begin to notice, to understand that time is now on your side. As you scrape your nails against the inside of it, you feel the imperfections that _centuries_ have wrought in your cage. 

Renewed strength pulses through you, the rage of being lost and abandoned buoys you. 

When you are finally free, you let the current pull you to the surface. 

The moon-light is too bright, blinding your depth-adjusted eyes, but you stare at it, blissfully aware that all too soon, you will be fighting another kind of monster for your life. You can see the fins break the surface, as your eyes adjust. 

You feel the first nip of teeth as you track the north star in the sky. You have no point of reference to determine how close you are to land. The open sea surrounds you, the taste of salt and blood begin to fill the air. 

Once, you would have felt the terror of the unknown. Now, you feel only the rage of survival, plans spinning and twisting through your mind even as you know they will change as the tide does.

There are too many sharks, too many teeth, and you have nothing but soft flesh and softer bones to counter them with.

But you have survived the depths. You will survive this, as well.


End file.
